Keep Local Money Local?
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
“Freedom of the press” is an important concept, but of course there isn’t much about producing news that is “free.” Employees must be paid, expenses covered, bills reconciled. That takes money. Community media often need considerably less money, given their smaller staffs and operating costs; however, the potential revenue in small communities is often quite limited, too. For community journalism outlets, “scale” is at the heart of the money issue.
A recent essay by media watcher Howard Owens is focused on how locally owned news sites can compete against AOL’s growing Patch network of hyperlocal sites. But much of his argument can also be applied to “CJ” outlets that are not in competition with Patch.
posted in: cj
October 2, 2010 | comments (0)
Locating ’Local’
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
AOL’s spreading local-news service, Patch.com, is not your father’s big-media community-journalism effort. By targeting suburbs and small towns without their own newspapers, and hiring local residents to produce content (some fresh grads of J-schools), Patch has the potential to be a major player in the community-journalism market.
This push of a major media company into the ’local news’ market is not a new phenomena. In his memoir ’Country Editor,’ Henry Beetle Hough made note of an effort in the mid-20th century of a regional daily newspaper to try to tap into the market of Hough’s weekly paper on Martha’s Vinyard:
posted in: cj
August 5, 2010 | comments (0)
Too Little, Too Late
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
A recently reported scandal in the blue-collar L.A. suburb of Bell, California, shows how a lack of community journalism can result in obscene levels of corruption in local governments. The L.A. Times broke the story more than a decade after the city of Bell lost its strong community paper; the city government had only received token coverage for some time.
Media watcher Richard Brenneman summed up the story this way: “Not only did the [salaries] raise enough community ire to force the resignations of City Manager Robert Rizzo [salary $787,637], Police Chief Randy Adams [$457,000], and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia [$376,288], but the city councilmembers also voted to cut back their own salaries, which averaged bearly $100,000 — insane for a city of fewer than 40,000 residents.”
posted in: cj
July 29, 2010 | comments (0)
Small Papers, Big Courage
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
In late June, I attended the annual conference of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, which this year was held in and around Richmond, Ky., and Eastern Kentucky University. ISWNE is a small but active group of mostly independent weekly newspaper editors from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, and some other nations.
Part of the conference is an awards banquet, and this year’s Eugene Cervi Award for outstanding service went to the Gish family of Whitesburg, Ky., and their weekly newspaper, The Mountain Eagle.
posted in: cj
July 24, 2010 | comments (0)
Not Insignificant
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
Several years ago, when the venerable Wall Street Journal was up for sale by Dow Jones and being aggressively pursued by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., we witnessed on a grand scale how the “community journalism” issue too often flies under the radar.
In nearly all of he media coverage of the run-up to Murdoch’s eventual purchase of the WSJ and its subsidiaries, the emphasis from media watchers, media scholars, and industry leaders was “what will happen to the Wall Street Journal”? Of almost no interest was “What will happen to the Ottaway Newspapers,” about two dozen community newspapers that were owned by Dow Jones and also up for sale. One of the few articles about the Ottaway papers, in the Boston Globe, quoted Murdoch as dismissing them as “those silly little Ottaway papers.”
posted in: cj
July 24, 2010 | comments (0)
CJ and the Jena 6
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
One reason community journalism tends to fly under the radar of media watchers (including many in journalism education) is because the work is intensely localized. A simple example can be found every election day – community media often report on the outcome of local races (county offices, town council, school boards) that would be of little interest to people not living in those localities. Rarely does a story published in a community medium get picked up by regional, national or international news media.
An example of a local story that did make national news is the infamous “Jena 6” story a few years ago in Jena, Louisiana, involving racial tensions, intimidation, and violence at the local high school. Once the story “went national,” the issue of racial tensions in tiny Jena (pop. about 3,000) was featured in such prominent media as National Public Radio and the BBC. A march in September 2007 by about 20,000 people put even more attention on the small town in central Louisiana.
posted in: cj
November 5, 2008 | comments (0)
What’s the difference?
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
At first pale, there may seem to be little difference between community journalism and the so-called ’mainstream media’ journalism of big-city newspapers, global magazines, national broadcasting and cable media, and national/international Web sites. But there are many profound differences, and countless subtle differences. Here are but a few:
• First, community journalism is journalism that privileges community values over professional values. That is, community journalists are sensitive (but not necessarily deferential) to the wants and needs of the communities they serve. That affects everything from news judgment (what is or is not worth covering) to making tough ethical decisions (about publishing information that would be embarrassing to people who live in the community).
posted in: cj
October 28, 2008 | comments (0)
What is ’community journalism’?
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
There’s a lot of buzz in both the industry and the academy these days about ’community journalism,’ and many pros and profs who are doing the talking think the concept is somehow new.
They’re wrong.
posted in: cj
October 28, 2008 | comments (0)
A Fifth are Offline
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
One in five U.S. adults do not use the Internet, according to a recently released survey report by the Pew Internet & American Life project.
Applied against U.S. Censure Bureau data, that means about 47.25 million American adults do not use the Internet.
posted in: cj, newspapers, online
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Hyperlocal Sports Sans Community Context?
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
Gannett recently announced its plans to expand its prep sports site, Highschoolsports.net, to provide “hyperlocal” coverage of 100 distinct schools. That coverage would then be “co-branded” with Gannett’s community newspapers serving those schools.
That may be a good move financially, as prep sports are a big deal in American culture and represents one of the most important sectors of coverage for community-focused media. But removing prep sports from the context of the whole community may be the achilles heel of the idea. The cultural capital of prep sports is directly connected to the broader context of the community; the role of prep sports in community life is diminished when it is not presented alongside coverage of other community news and information.
posted in: cj, newspapers, online, sports
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Anonymity in a Small Town
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, journalists are supposed to “give voice to the voiceless.” But a recent trend in the journalism business has been to refuse to give voice to the nameless.
The kerfuffle is over the online forums provided by news media in which readers can comment on articles and opinion pieces, often anonymously or using pseudonyms. Some highly respected journalists, frustrated and disgusted with some of the nasty, hurtful, and just plain whacky missives from some anonymous posters, have called for a ban to anonymous comments.
posted in: cj
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TBD is CTD: The fast rise and fall of a CJ startup
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
UPDATE: Please see corrections in third and sixth paragraphs and clarified language in the eighth paragraph. I regret the errors and any confusing prose, and greatly appreciate TBD.com’s Steve Buttry contributing the corrections. Buttry’s response can be read at http://bit.ly/fj7nIP. — Bill R.
Just six months after it launched to much fanfare, the Washington, D.C., area community journalism site TBD.com (short for, it is suggested, “To Be Determined”) is CTD (short for “circling the drain”). Some suggest it was too ambitious a business model to launch during a sluggish economy; others suggest the demise of TBD.com was because of disagreements between the owner and the top managers.
posted in: cj, community, online
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Additional thoughts on TBD.com
by Bill Reader, Associate Professor
My recent post regarding TBD.com’s pending decline generated some feedback, including quite a bit within TBD.com itself. Steve Buttry, director of community engagement at TBD.com and a veteran community journalist, weighed in heavily on his personal blog. He also pointed out some factual errors that I have since corrected. I encourage those interested in the issue to read Steve’s reply and the ensuing dialog (and I also am envious of the commenting forum on Steve’s blog, and hope we someday offer the same on this site).
Having considered Steve’s reply and the various comments made by others in/to it, I do want to make some clarifications and some better-explained (I hope) perspectives:
